


Janitor

by bella_my_clarke



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canonverse AU, F/M, Janitor Bellamy, One Shot, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7173605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bella_my_clarke/pseuds/bella_my_clarke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While a janitor on the ark, Bellamy is tasked with cleaning a rather interesting solitary cell....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Janitor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@hisstericallyawesomesleeppurr on tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40hisstericallyawesomesleeppurr+on+tumblr).



> This is from a tumblr idea that got tossed around :)

“You’ve got a new cell to clean now, Blake,” the man said, leering at Bellamy wickedly. “A new girl just got brought in; a little wild, a little reckless, and plenty stupid. Just like your mistake of a sister.”

Bellamy resisted the overwhelming urge to punch his superior across the jaw, knowing he couldn’t risk any more drops in the system. At least he could indirectly protect Octavia as a janitor, check in on her status through other workers. If he let his temper dominate, he could get floated, and who would protect O then? So instead he gripped the mop in his hand, pretending it was a knife. _Screw you. I’m not afraid_ , he thought, thinking of his mother, and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He had to wash out the solitary confinement cell routinely; the girl who resided there was never present when he did. For the first while it was the same agonizingly boring cleaning he always did; then, one day, he walked in on a different room entirely.

Paintings blossomed across the dull gray space, and though they held no color they were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. They showed so clearly things he’d never seen but dreamed of, animals and trees and the look of the night sky from beneath the atmosphere. They weren’t the drawings of a jaded amateur trying to kill time, either; they were the sort of paintings that should be framed and put on wall; the sort that should be carefully kept and dusted; the sort that should be treasured. He didn’t even know prisoners were allowed to use art tools, especially on their own walls; perhaps this girl had some high standing among them, a princess of the lot. With art as beautiful as this, he wouldn’t be surprised to know she was royalty.

Bellamy hefted his mop in his hands, liking his job even less now. It was yet another way the high-class people treated everyone else like trash—this girl deserved to be enjoying the good life of the Ark, interacting with people and going to parties and being given canvases to express her incredible talent. She didn’t deserve to be doomed to die at eighteen years of age like Octavia, and doomed to be a life-long prisoner like himself. He may not have had a cell, but bars still surrounded him.

It was the reminder of those bars and his current inability to escape them that moved Bellamy’s hand, and soon enough he was wiping the cell clean of the designs, and all the hope and individuality that came with it. He kept his face as blank as the blank walls appearing from behind the rich grayscale, and with each push he pretended the mop could scrub away the unsettled shifting in his chest as easily as it could paint.

This ritual went on for quite a while. Each time Bellamy came into the room, gripping the wooden mop like a vice between his fingers as if it could splinter under the power of his will, he expected to be used to the art he was forced to destroy. Each time, he found he was wrong. The more he scrubbed, the stronger the art came back, as if the cell’s resident was challenging him. _That the best you got?_

He wondered about this girl he was facing, this princess, sometimes. Well...more than sometimes. A lot. Every day, maybe. How could he not wonder about someone when he was in their room constantly? When he was one of the few who saw their expressions across the walls, the floor, the ceiling? When she could be anyone, someone he once knew even? He’d heard people discussing her, but her identity and the reason for her imprisonment were kept a secret from him. This made him a little frustrated, but it also fueled his curiosity about her, and he fantasized about what she looked like, talked like, acted like. Some days she had his dark skin but green eyes and the sort of smirk that could make your brain go into overdrive. Other times she was compassionate and blonde and could make you feel alive by just brushing her hand against yours, or bold and wide-eyed, or ready to fight back no matter what you said or did to her. It was fun to imagine her, a quiet thought in the tumult of a storm, but in the end he didn’t really care about her skin tone or the tenor of her voice or if her smile crinkled up her eyes; he just knew he’d like her.

Bellamy also thought about how they’d meet. He knew this was silly and a little bittersweet of him to do, but he did it anyway. Another way to silence the demons. It was sometimes a sad meeting, sometimes fierce or frightening or quiet or sweet. Didn’t matter, as long as they met.

These were the same thoughts clouding Bellamy’s mind as he scrubbed half-heartedly at new paintings swirling outwards from the center of the room. He attempted to clear his mind, since he already had more than enough to think about without the princess, but the ideas had become such a common guest in his mind that they’d grown roots and settled down to stay. As a compromise, he quieted them, putting static on top by consciously going over what he was going to do when the prisoners were gathered up to be dropped down to Earth. This, however, did little besides leave him deeply unsettled and make his arms too weak to do proper, powerful strokes, so he adjusted his thoughts to the reason behind all of this. _Octavia. Always Octavia_.

He repeated his sister’s name in his head, a mantra, a broken song that became the tempo for his heartbeat, the accent behind each push and pull of his tools. _Octavia_. Push. _Octavia_. Pull. _Octavia_. Push. _Octavia_. Pull. She was his anchor, his rock, his everything. For her, he would burn down the Earth. For her, he would also brave it.

For a moment he paused, the tip of his mop inches away from the final painting. The final thing he would erase on the Ark. The final piece of art the curious girl was likely to create. The final memory of the person he really was, and the difference between him and the person he would likely become.

_But I can’t be me anymore, can I?_ he thought. _I can never go back; not once that gun touches my fingers_. And he brought the mop down.

When he left the room for the last time, Bellamy couldn’t help but look back, and despite the quiet protests from his head, he sent his heart searching once more for the princess whose mark had already begun to brush at the tips of his fingers. His heart beat once, a rise and fall of his chest, a hope seeding somewhere past where he could reach. Perhaps he would meet her on the drop ship. If he did, he hoped they’d have clean air to breathe so they could become friends.

The day came, and in return for being with his sister Bellamy did things he knew he would never be able to say aloud to anyone; not colleagues, not friends, not even O. They were the sort of actions that stained his hands crimson and only dug deeper the more he tried to wash them clean.

“Stop!”

His brain sparked back to reality, and after a moment of restarting, he turned and was faced with a rather pretty girl with long, wavy blonde hair and blue eyes. “The air is toxic,” she warned. There was something about the lilt in her voice, an almost deep quality even though she had a moderate tenor, that stuck to his skin and made him pay attention.

“If the air’s toxic, we’re all dead anyway,” he reminded her, and she stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t read her expression, but for a moment he pretended to be deciphering it, just for an excuse to look at her.

Then he heard it. “Bellamy?”

His heart squeezed tightly, hope springing up like a well in his heart, and he moved his head towards the newer, more familiar voice. A girl was coming down the ladder. No, not a girl; _his girl_. Octavia. His lips parted and he stared, not truly believing it for a moment. His baby sister, in front of his eyes. Then she stepped forward, and he knew it was true. A rare grin spread across his face, blossomed across his cheeks and eyes, and he said wonderingly, “Look how big you are.”

In response, she flung her arms around him, clinging tightly, and he held her for a moment, feeling every spectrum of emotions. When she pulled away, though, she noticed the uniform he wore and her voice and face grew hard. “What are you wearing? A _guard’s_ uniform?”

He swallowed down memories hard and said simply, “I...borrowed it. To get on the drop ship.” O still seemed concerned, so he added with a grin, “Someone’s got to keep an eye on you.”

Octavia sighed contentedly and hugged him again. As he secured her in his arms, his eyes caught those of the girl, and after the initial...shock...of seeing her, was clearly Clarke Griffin. He forgot to look away for a moment, even while holding his sister, and he thought absently of how before Octavia was caught and he was demoted, he’d seen a painting Clarke had done. She was an incredible artist, considering she was the Ark’s delicate princess.

He looked at her, and in her eyes he saw the paintings on the walls of the cell, the fierce rebellion in the quietest of ways. The center of the storm. _Maybe not so delicate after all_ , he thought, and knew something had begun.


End file.
